Many small businesses experience common pains as their company starts to grow and their accounting software can't keep up. Applications like QuickBooks provide small businesses with basic accounting functions they need to get started. However, basic business tools can quickly become inadequate as your company expands.
So how does a growth-focused business know when it’s time to adopt an ERP solution? If you’re tired of wasting valuable time trying to access your data, then the time is now.
In a recent Vision33 guest speaker webinar series, Cindy Jutras – the enterprise expert behind the Mint Jutras consulting firm, outlined three of the most common roadblocks growing companies face when they rely on spreadsheets, QuickBooks or Sage to support their business:
Roadblock #1: Financial closings take longer than expected. You dread spending hours trying to combine data from different systems for end-of-month or end-of-year reporting, or even worse – having to manually edit data across multiple systems.
Roadblock #2: Not being able to see the whole picture. Since your data resides across departmental silos, you find it challenging to build meaningful reports to help you make strategic decisions due to discrepancies and gaps between systems.
Roadblock #3: Limited ability to meet customer demand. A sure sign it’s time to adopt an ERP solution is that you can’t anticipate customer demands even though your inventory is growing. You find it difficult to have goods ready before your customers place an order because spreadsheets don’t give you the tools you need to view purchase histories.
There are no set standards for when it makes the most sense to adopt an ERP solution. But if you’re spending more time on addressing inefficiencies than on growing your business, then it’s likely you’ve reached a stage of growth where it’s time to make the change. And when you think about it that way, how can you afford not to switch to an ERP solution.
Watch the Vision33 Guest Speaker Webinar Series video featuring Cindy Jutras to hear how SMEs can overcome these roadblocks with and get peace of mind with an ERP solution.
